Play it safer
Here’s what not to do in the bloody trails left by two men shot, one near death, and one fatally stabbed along the route of a pre-dawn West Indian-American Day celebration: Insist that safety was not the organizers’ responsibility. Such is the claim of the shoestring operation that sponsors the overnight Labor Day bacchanal known as J’Ouvert in the hours before the mammoth annual parade down Eastern Parkway — a view indulged by Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams.
That J’Ouvert is a joyous expression of Caribbean culture relieves them not a bit of the obligation to secure an event has swelled to 250,000 revelers.
Spurred by the shooting a short block from the parade route of Carey Gabay, a lawyer for Gov. Cuomo’s administration, Adams convened a summit meeting of community leaders and police on Thursday. Afterward, J’Ouvert co-organizer Yvette Rennie missed the point.
Speaking of the violence, she said, “That has nothing to do with our J’Ouvert. . . . Within our community there is a serious gun issue that happens regardless.”
Which is the strongest argument for stepping up security.
Deflecting, too, was Adams, who unveiled plans for a mushy “best practices” task force charged with securing every parade in Brooklyn, and whose Labor Day view will look far beyond the J’Ouvert route to nightclubs lining Utica Ave. to backyard and street parties stretching for miles.
Sorry: It helps no one to deny the unrivaled complications of a procession that has surged over the years from a steel-drum band competition to a densely crowded takeover of the streets of Crown Heights and Flatbush.
To its ample credit, the NYPD swept in more than 1,200 officers overnight. They made 12 gun arrests that may have prevented worse bloodshed — but they were also powerless, among the throngs, to intervene in shootings and stabbings in their presence.
Such is the price for indulging a late-night event whose organizers never obtained a permit, and for throwing quality-of-life law enforcement — against public drinking, drugging and urination — out the broken window.
In place of denial, the partnership between the NYPD and parade organizers needs to rise to the challenge of securing the J’Ouvert route — not to penned-in Times-Square-on-New-Year’s-Eve levels, but to a form suited to a great New York celebration.